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Customers stranded

ispONE, which resold access to Telstra’s 3G mobile network to mobile services operated by ALDI and Kogan, appointed administrators in August after a failed legal bid against Telstra.

It alleged Telstra had threatened to cut off services to 280,000 mobile customers over unpaid invoices, which ispONE said had been miscalculated.

Though ALDI customers signed a last-minute deal with Telstra to retain customers on the network, those who had purchased Kogan Mobile’s prepaid products – sometimes up to 12 months in advance – were forced to find new mobile carriers.

Corporate administrators Ferrier Hodgson completed a sale on Monday of parts of ispONE, including its billing platform, mobile subsidiaries and more than 61,000 customers, to Melbourne-based Conec2.

Mr Swindells said low-cost players could still thrive, provided the companies that own the mobile networks themselves continue to allow access to third parties.

“The same thing happened with low-cost broadband; we don’t have to go too far back to see who was saying this about Dodo," he said.

However, he said that without regulation similar to that which mandates Telstra provide equitable access to its copper network for broadband services, carriers were unlikely to maintain open networks.

While Vodafone and Optus both offer or plan to offer wholesale access to all parts of their network, Telstra only resells access to a limited aspect of its 3G network.

“There is a desire for this market," Mr Swindells said. “It defies belief that some companies are winding back wholesale when I think it’s the easiest way to maintain and extend their position in the marketplace.

“At the end of the day there’s only three mobile carriers in the country. If they decide not to wholesale, of course the MVNO market is dead because there will be no supply."